I’m “adapting” to the project, learning better strategies — putting the umbrella where I can get an elbow around it in case of wind, for example.

It’s okay to stop writing and hang onto the umbrella sometimes.

Some conversations:

It’s been on my mind recently because of this project. I saw something online about a protest in NY in September. … It feels like we’ve kept on hearing about this for years and now we’re really realizing it’s here and a problem, when it’s too late for collaborative change, too late to have much of an effect, reversing it or slowing–well, not slowing it, but stopping it. I guess it’s not surprising, it’s such an enormous thing. I think people push it to the back of their minds and worry about it a little when they read things in the New York Times, because to address it, they’d need to change the entire society.

Why is it easier for us to imagine everything dying, blank ocean, blank land, than it is for us to imagine changing society?

That’s a good question. On an individual level, if people aren’t willing to commit their whole lives to this, why should they expect other people to be able to–and some people aren’t in a position to. It seems like the problem is basically the way capitalism is–the whole logic that the only thing that matters is making a profit and continuous expansion. Even reforms, things like green energy, they’re still trying to be like, “This is the future, you need to invest in this now and make more money.”

So keeping that in mind–that profit motive–what are things that people can do within that, or alongside that, to take responsibility for each other, and for other things, places?

If people reorient their value systems — see inherent value in an ecosystem, in animals and plants living — their lives will start to organize around this idea, both within the world of consumption and outside it. Forming points of community beyond the profit motive, like religion, or family. But I feel like those things aren’t as strong as they used to be.

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Are the poles really melting, and it’s gonna raise the seas? So we’re gonna lose Manhattan, Nag’s Head? It doesn’t matter! There’s no anxiety–you’ll be dead, I’ll be dead, and new life will come.

*

People moving away from the coast, losing their homes, and there’ll be a lot more sloshing around, so we’ll have to worry about a contaminated water supply … As Americans, we waste so much. And what’s happening in California is terrible.

When you think of this hard future, how do you imagine helping other people survive?

It’ll be the difference between some people surviving and other people not surviving. It’s a terrible moral tragedy and it’s occurring right now. It has to do with the upper classes winning out and overusing everything … Having everybody have their own home, their own retreat–why do people have to get away from it all? … . I think that one of the things is we could switch from an 8-hour workday to a 6-hour workday. There’d be more time for leisure, thinking, education. There’s this ideology of freedom, that people should be able to do whatever they want. I think it’s time for us to work together.

*

Taking the bus in the rain.

Does that make you anxious, or you just hate it?

I just hate it. The news says it’s not gonna rain and then it does rain.

*

I’m anxious about punctuality and being here in the last 4 minutes of your shift. I don’t know if I’m interested in climate change, but I’m here because I saw the article in the Phoenix and I was interested in this setup for public engagement … I’m afraid I’ll fail to live up to my full potential as a great artist who’s really satisfied with my own work.

What kind of artist are you now, like are you okay, or pretty good?

I’m okay. I think I could be really good if I devoted 100% of my time to my art.

Why don’t you?

Fear of failure, fear of losing the stability that I’ve worked so hard to achieve. I have a regular job and I do regular things, and I hate it.